YMCA GATORS SWIM TEAM Steering Committee Meeting Meeting Date Tuesday, September 10, 2013 Meeting Location St. Cloud YMCA Conference Room Meeting Time 5:00pm Attendance Ronnie Bjork (president), Jenny Davis (secretary), Dana Hoffmann, Steve and Charlotte Murphy, and Melissa McElwee Business arising from the agenda 1. Introduction to swim team We had previously offered to help with the Introduction to Swim Team to help generate interest in the team and ease parents and swimmers in by answering the questions many have, but currently it is felt that the system in place is working fine and we will not be needed to help in this area. 2. Swim team officials We need more Officials from our team. Currently Ronnie Bjork is our only official. If you have any interest in helping out in this area, please talk to Ronnie or Coach Evan. To become an official, you attend a class(es) and are fully trained and tested before you begin this work. 3. Marketing material and efforts: The Gator logo has been updated to reflect the YMCA marketing standards. It will appear on the new apparel available this fall. We are also creating a poster to help promote the swim team. We are seeking 4 swimmers, 2 boys, 2 girls to help with this. The design has been created; we simply need to take a few pictures to use on this. I will try to take some pictures during swim practice in the next couples of days or early next week. We are also seeking businesses to help sponsor our team. We are seeking 5 or 6 businesses willing to pay $50 to have their logo on our poster. If you own a business and are interested in helping, or if you are in a position to ask the company you work
for if they would be willing to sponsor the team, that would be greatly appreciated! Each swimmer would then take several posters home to share and post. 4. Steering committee financial standings INCOMING: Pizza Ranch: $202 Spring Banquet overage: $39 Corborn s Brat sale: $184 TOTAL IN: $424.37 OUTGOING EXPENSES: $140 gift cards for coaches at banquet FINAL BALANCE: $284.37 Fundraising: Why we are fundraising/purpose for fundraising money Y State t-shirts The YMCA paid for these shirts last year since we were returning champs but they won t pay it again this coming year. It is neat for the returning champ team to walk in with a new team shirt with special printing on the back saying State Champs or something like that Equipment purchases (outside of aquatics budget) Intrasquad meet awards if we want to offer awards that different from typical awards Spring Awards Banquet for coaches recognition gifts Trophy case currently our trophies are at a local trophy shop being repaired. Apparently trophies like this do not do well sitting out exposed to humidity in the pool or even lobby area. Having a small case (which offers more protection than a shelf) would better protect what our team has earned. Fundraising ideas Ronnie is looking into a photography sales/fundraising option. o The idea is we sell a minimum of 125 sessions for $10, each session gets the person/family a photo shoot and a 10x13 photo. o Two weeks after photos, we all return, photographers and owner of the $10 coupon to pick up their 10x13 photo. Once there they have the option to purchase additional photos that the photographers bring with them for an additional fee, but there is no obligation to purchase any more than the 10x13 they bought with the $10 coupon (cost for additional photos is unknown at the moment) o The team earns the $10 of each of the coupons sold and a percentage of any package that is upgraded
o The potential earnings are: 100 sessions = $2000 (though for our location we are required to commit to 125 sessions) 150 sessions = $3000 200 sessions - $4000 o Work involved would be supplying people to help the photographers the day of the shoot and the day they return for photo pick up (don t know how many that would be). We would also be required to sell the sessions. Idea would be to divide the minimum number needed to sell (125) by the number of families involved with the swim team, (during the summer that number was around 68) leaving each family responsible for selling 2 sessions (or more if able) o Ronnie is looking into more information about this fundraising option. A team garage sale, using the YMCA gym for space And other ideas would be greatly appreciated! Please contact Ronnie, Jenny or Coach Evan if you know of any. 5. Equipment needs New pull buoys are needed at YMCA location (other location buoys are in good shape Ronnie has inquired if: o the Y team budget will be able to afford new ones? o if the team budget can split the cost with the steering committee? o or if the steering committee wants to purchase these outright? Ronnie found some that are $4.95 for junior size and $5.95 for the adult size, if we purchase 12 or more there is a 10% discount. We will need about 20 total Timing system we are currently renting the timing system for meets we host. It was asked what the cost for renting the equipment is versus the cost of a new one, which one makes better business sense? 6. 2013 2014 Team Apparel Swim Caps there will be an order for personalized caps in the near future. We will need a minimum order of 25 items, but each personalization must be 2 per name, in other words, you can t order just one (1), you need to order a minimum of two (2) We have updated the logo to meet the YMCA branding requirements, and are hoping to do a Rambow (T-shirts, sweatshirts, sweatpants, etc) order in September and another one before Christmas with them being ready in time for Christmas. This will include many similar items as before, but with the updated logo. Melissa McElwee is taking care of this for the team and suggested if you have favorite items you want to make sure are still available or if you have items we have not had in the past, but would like to see them in the future, to please let her know (mmcelwee@intlbarrier.com).
Elsmore has put together a Gator Team shopping page. There will be a link between the Gator website and Elsmore for families to shop. It should offer our families a discount on selected items and a potential money or credit for the team with Elsmore. Team suits will be available through here as well. Items such as warm up jackets, parkas, goggles, flippers, buoy s, nose clips will also be available. 9. Open Discussion 1. YMCA State Meet Currently Worthington YMCA swim club is slated to host the State meet. They coordinated with their local school district to ensure that there were no big events in their school the same weekend as the state meet to ensure maximum help to run the meet. The U of M (the venue for the state meet) changed the date of the meet and moved it a week earlier, causing a major conflict for the Worthington team (swimmers and parents volunteers). Due to this, they feel they will be unable to properly host the state meet and asked the State YMCA Swim group to help find a solution. Our team is scheduled to host State next season (2014-2015). It was asked if we would like to swap with Worthington and host this year instead. After much discussion, the general feelings of those in attendance at the Steering Meeting was to host it this year and be done with our obligation early. Each team is required to provide several timers and there is no concession needs since the U of M maintains control over that, and there is no pool fee for this meet since the YMCA State league pays this fee. Worthington did offer to share, or spilt the responsibilities with another team this year and next year, meaning we would have state responsibilities two years in a row. Coach Even will be at a meeting this coming Fri and will ask more questions so we can better make a decision regarding this. 2. Meets We will be hosting 3 meets in 2014: January (Pentathalon Meet), May and June, all are USA meets. Remember, in order to be eligible for YCMA sections, each swimmer needs to compete in 3 YMCA meets during the season. We are not scheduled to host any YMCA meets during the fall/winter season due to not making a profit from these and still having a pool fee of $500. There were concerns regarding our not hosting YMCA meets:
Is it good/bad etiquette to NOT host any YMCA while still being a YMCA team? Most of the Y teams that host meets are able to do so at their YMCA pools and do not incur pool fees as our team does. Some swimmers only compete at the home meets and do not travel for various reasons; will our team lose competitors at State by not offering more home meets? This also affects the concern about hosting the State meet. If we have less swimmers making it to state, we will likely have less parents going who can help volunteer and make this meet happen properly. Next Meeting Date: Tuesday, October 8, 2013 at 5:00pm Meeting Closed The meeting closed at 7:00